Illustration: Lovely and very little-known Maurice Sendak posters!

Like most people, we only have to hear the name “Maurice Sendak” and we’re immediately filled with a wave of joy that comes all the way from the hours spent poring over his illustrations as children, so you can probably picture our reaction when Brain Pickings posted this article about his little-known posters earlier on this week. The posters were created for plays, book fairs, art events and Broadway shows, many of them including his brilliant Wild Things, and they make us too happy not to share.

In the introduction to the book which holds them all, Sendak writes: “Posters and other occasional pieces make up a very small part of my picture-making but, paradoxically, I have a disproportionate affection for these easy images. Why ‘easy?’ They came easy. They were painted in rare moments of relaxation. Often, they were the happy summing up of conglomerate emotions and ideas that had previously been distilled into picture books and theatrical productions. Simply, they were fun to do.”